When I put up my first post on social liberalism several weeks ago, I envisioned a series of posts that would discuss many of the implications of the fact that modern liberalism is more a social phenomenon than an intellectual one. I’ve done that in part, but have until now neglected to mention one of the largest implications of all, namely that most modern liberals make easy targets for propagandists of all stripes because their political identity is driven more by their feelings than by the facts, and so they rarely exert critical judgement over the memes and narratives of the moment.

Quite to the contrary: to exert critical judgement is automatically to invite suspicion, because it means asking difficult questions, seeking facts, pointing out fallacies, noting inconsistencies, all of which make modern liberals profoundly uncomfortable because those sorts of activities advertise the questioner’s willingness to dissent from the orthodoxy.

Circle dancing is magic. It speaks to us through the millennia from the depths of human memory. Madame Raphael had cut the picture out of the magazine and would stare at it and dream. She too longed to dance in a ring. All her life she had looked for a group of people she could hold hands with and dance with in a ring. First she looked for them in the Methodist Church (her father was a religious fanatic), then in the Communist Party, then among the Trotskyites, then in the anti-abortion movement (A child has a right to life!), then in the pro-abortion movement (A woman has a right to her body!); she looked for them among the Marxists, the psychoanalysts, and the structuralists; she looked for them in Lenin, Zen Buddhism, Mao Tse-tung, yogis, the nouveau roman, Brechtian theater, the theater of panic; and finally she hoped she could at least become one with her students, which meant she always forced them to think and say exactly what she thought and said, and together they formed a single body and a single soul, a single ring and a single dance.

To question is to step outside the circle, to resist the lure of the dance. And so the memes and narratives proliferate, pushed on by those who “feel moved” by them and are too afraid to question them.

Among the many liberals I know, this week’s meme is a viral video about “the wealth gap.” I first noticed a college acquaintance (and an enthusiastic Elizabeth Warren supporter) mention it on Facebook on Sunday, and have noticed at least three other references to it by others since then. The video is only 6 minutes and 24 seconds long, but if you’re like me, after about three minutes, it will seem like it is going on forever.

I’ve recorded some of my thoughts below the fold.

The first reaction I had to this video is one of disbelief that any intelligent person could take it seriously. The ominous graphics about “WEALTH INEQUALITY IN AMERICA,” the menacing music, and the oh-so-selective presentation of “facts” and details to make its case. The whole video seems like it was made by someone who read the book How to Lie with Statistics as a how-to manual rather than a cautionary guide.

The video’s starting point is a survey by Harvard professor Michael I. Norton about the beliefs of “Democrats, Republicans and Independents” about the distribution of wealth in America; I haven’t researched the study in question extensively, but, I suspect that if I did, I’d formulate even more questions about the legitimacy of its conclusion. (The above-linked article, though, identifies Norton’s work as having been “inspired by the work of Harvard philosopher John Rawls,” a fact which ought to set off alarm bells in the mind of anyone even remotely familiar with Rawls’ A Theory of Justice.)

For the time being, though, let’s stipulate that the study was done in a fair and reasonable matter, that there was nothing unreasonably biased in the way the questions were worded or the way the sample was selected.

Even if we concede that point, though, the next question is, “so what?” So a sample of the public at large doesn’t understand the realities of wealth distribution in our economy. What does that prove? This video starts from the premise that that proves our society is flawed, terribly, horribly, frighteningly flawed, and ramps up the music, the manipulated charts, and the slightly dramatized voice-over to hammer home that point.

A more cautious approach to the data would acknowledge that perhaps the public at large doesn’t fully understand economics, that even the implications of a precept as supposedly well-known as the 80-20 rule escape the grasp of the population (or at least of the sample that this Harvard professor surveyed).

One of the other major, flawed premises of the video is that what the surveyed group believes “should be” the case is, in any practical sense, workable or desirable. Just because the surveyed group believes that wealth should be distributed in a more even manner doesn’t mean that societies where wealth is distributed in that way are necessarily desirable or that they work more efficiently than societies where wealth is distributed unevenly. (Do you imagine that there could be a reason why this video isn’t a study in comparative economics? I do.)

But the filmmaker doesn’t let what should be two obvious flaws and weaknesses stop him from producing a major piece of propaganda. In fact, quite to the contrary, he makes a point of returning to the statistics from the Harvard survey time and again, superimposing them as lines on his charts about the actual realities of wealth distribution, charts which he’s careful not to scale adequately, just so he can complain about the concentration of wealth being “off the chart.”

Likewise, there’s the confusion of terms here. He interchanges talk about “wealth” and “income” so loosely that it’s hard to know what statistics he’s talking about at any given time. Anyone who lives in a state that has been hit hard by the housing bust and the foreclosure crisis should have familiarity with concepts like negative equity, the lack of savings, and the costliness of easy credit on the financial situations of so many Americans. In a world where rock stars and sports stars go bankrupt, the difference between income and assets really shouldn’t be that hard to grasp, and yet this video is doing its best to capitalize on the confusion.

And we haven’t even touched on the issue of class mobility which the video pretends doesn’t exist. In 1976–a year the video references at 5:09–the American economy was stagnant and moribund after years of price controls and runaway inflation, Warren Buffett was a successful investor (but a long, long way from being the richest person in the country), Bill Gates was a lawyer’s son who had dropped out of Harvard to start a new venture, Apple Computer was introducing its first product, and Mark Zuckerberg wasn’t even born yet.

We “just need to wake up” says the video, as it closes, with yet another ominous chord. Note that while it doesn’t propose a solution to the problem, it sure hints at one.

The video pretends to be balanced in its ominous invocation of “socialism” as if to say that what it’s advancing isn’t socialism but simply common sense. This is a standard diversionary tactic employed by the left for years–one which Obama employed with great success in 2008: talk about the necessity for “change” and make reference to “fairness” rather than calling overtly for socialism.

I’ve only scratched the surface of the problems inherent in the case made by the video, and yet the liberals who are promoting the video seem incapable of recognizing even those basic flaws.

Consider the kinds of tag lines they use to promote it: “All we have to do is to fix this, and we can get our economy working again,” exclaimed one.

Oh great. And how, exactly, do they propose we “fix it”? What fix can they propose that doesn’t involve confiscatory taxation, burdensome regulation, forced redistribution, and incentivizing all sorts of undesirable behaviors? Those sorts of fixes worked so well, after all, in the former Soviet Union, in China, in Cuba, and in North Korea. Naturally they won’t say because they don’t want to get into discussing the ugly details.

“I feel stunned and silenced by this video. I’m all choked up,” said another. Please forgive me, I’m tempted to say, if I fail to see your emotional inability to grasp some basic, simple premises of economics as a compelling reason to move towards an economic system that is known for its corruption, its brutality, and its certain collapse. To the social liberal, though, such a response would not only be unthinkable, it would be a horror; what matters is their feelings, and their intentions.

Anyone bold enough to step outside of the circle and question the sanctity of their feelings or intentions must be monstrous, or cruel, or worse, crazy. Emily Dickinson comes to mind:

68 Comments

I find the argument of “inequality of income” to be an interesting example of liberal hypocrisy. If incomes have a wide disparity, there are two ways that can be addressed. You can either produce an environment where the poor are more mobile to the middle class or you can just take stuff away from rich people. If you have someone who makes $200 million a year and take half of that, they still have $100 million a year but you have likely had a significant impact on the disparity statistic. But is anyone better off for it? No.

The liberal goes after income disparity because it makes them feel bad. Reducing it makes them feel better. They don’t care that their policies might actually hurt both rich and poor, that isn’t the point. The point is to get the math to the point where the liberal “feels” better about the situation.

The goal should be to improve the standard of living of those at the bottom in such a way as they do it themselves through their own ingenuity, talents, drive, etc. Liberals don’t like that approach much either because the cynical cadre who actually pull the heartstrings of the rank and file liberals want those poor people to remain dependent so they keep voting fellow liberals to office. If these people are able to “escape” and improve their own situation without the need for “programs”, what do they need Democrats for? Heck, they might even become Republicans!

So the idea is to make sure they can never actually benefit from the Republican world view by keeping them trapped in a cycle of dependency. All that Republican talk about economic growth and jobs and improving one’s situation must be aimed at white folks or something because the Democrats have minorities believing they are never going to amount to anything so there is no use in trying. Just sit on the couch, take your check every month, and keep voting for your local liberal politician to keep the checks rolling in.

The Democrats are the worst thing to happen to poor people in the history of this country.

In the following comments, by “socialism”, I mean (a) the public provision of private goods or “benefits” to people, including different forms of bailout, and (b) government interference in the economy, to try to make (a) work. In other words, typical Obama / liberal Democrat policies.

We “just need to wake up” says the video

Yeah. To the facts that:
- socialists are would-be aristocrats;
- socialist policies often increase (not reduce) the concentration of wealth, albeit by grinding people down and denying opportunities for wealth;
- Obama represents a Big Government – Big Banking – Big Labor nexus (in that order) that harms the middle class and the poor;
- the middle class and poor have never done so well in human history as they did under laissez-faire capitalism, that is, free enterprise + small government + sound money.

And we haven’t even touched on the issue of class mobility which the video pretends doesn’t exist.

Under socialism, there is generally less of class mobility.

And how, exactly, do they propose we “fix it”? What fix can they propose that doesn’t involve confiscatory taxation, burdensome regulation, forced redistribution, and incentivizing all sorts of undesirable behaviors?

As in the 1930s, the problems with our economy today come down to 2 things:

1) Too much debt.
2) Too much government.

That’s what we need to fix. Obama, and socialism, are steps in the wrong direction, on both counts. Bailouts – whether for the banks / the rich, GM / the labor unions, the middle class / housing market, or the poor – only keep people enslaved with high debt levels and make the economy more decrepit.

Please forgive me, I’m tempted to say, if I fail to see your emotional inability to grasp some basic, simple premises of economics as a compelling reason to move towards an economic system that is known for its corruption, its brutality, and its certain collapse.

The left acts as if poor people had their poverty forced on them, when in fact poverty, most often, is a consequence of personal and lifestyle choices. Stay in school, don’t have children out of wedlock, avoid drugs and crime and you have reduced your chances of living in poverty immensely. Of course, this solution does not help the leftist gain what he desires most; power and control.

V the K I think you are right in that for adults at least, lifestyle choices trap them in poverty as much as some mean, 1 percenter picking on them.

Just waiting until you finish high school and post high school job training (college or some kind of technical or trade training) and marriage will go a long way towards getting a person out of poverty.

I think the most annoying thing for me in that video (and I admit to wasing 6 minutes of my life) was the intentional mixing of wealth and income.

The two are not the same thing.

I was also bothered that the clip ended making the wealthy seem like evil, bad guys (that CEO apparently does absolutely nothing to earn their income and definitely does less than the poor scrub who works for him), but then doesn’t really provide a solution or defend it.

Liberals want to make the wealthy the bad guys-funny thing is just how many liberals are wealthy. I often wonder why these wealthy liberals who are part of the 1% don’t just give all their wealth away rather than demand the government take some of it away. If people having wealth is so awful, then nobody is stopping them from giving away all of it except maybe 100k to live on.

Shoot they could probably give it all away and the money given away would be more effective than letting government take a portion of it to spend on the poor.

I have always wondered, if we follow the socialist/liberal model, where the money is suppose to come from for a small business like mine to get a loan when needed? If the government takes their money, there is none for me. If the government lets them keep more of their money, they can loan me money, they hopefully make a nice return on their investment…which would be reasonably taxed, and I would generate income which would also be reasonably taxed. No modern liberal will ever want to hear this, but if the rich get richer, everyone has an opportunity to be richer. If the government takes more of their money and doesn’t allow them to get richer, then nobody else can be richer either. How does this not make sense to them?

A few days ago a liberal I know pointed out that Carlos Slim’s money, averaged out in Mexico would give every household ~$46,000.

I made a different point in reply.
If it were not for unionized paper pushers in DC and we still put the same amount we already do put into federal social welfare, every family below the poverty line would get $60,000 every year!

If the democrats can keep them poor, but tailor the message so the “rich” and the “GOP” get the blame, then they retain their power and their wealth (I am willing to be just about every member of congress is a 1 percenter).

One thought. Should the conservative/libertarian think tanks (or any other marketing organizations) produce the a counter video — i.e., with corrected graphs, interpretations, and counterpoints. Without the silly drama of the video of course.

If anyone has the right skillset to do this, we can pool some $$ to do it. I would be happy to donate.

One of the differences between the left and the right is that — people on the left are finding resources to invest in this kind of propaganda. Don’t see the right doing much to get out their own perspective more actively — do educate people. Just look at Organizing for Action.

….there is a hard and fast difference between rights and entitlements, a difference which the past seventy years of government policy has blurred to the point of indistinguishability. A free society must recognize the distinction. Otherwise, it has no way of knowing which claims of rights to acknowledge and which to reject as spurious. Legitimate rights are easy to recognize. They can be acted on by individuals without the assistance of government and without forcibly interfering with other individuals. Entitlements, on the other hand, cannot be fulfilled except through specific government actions which require forcible interference with others. Protecting rights is thus compatible with limited government. Granting entitlements requires an ever-expanding and increasingly meddlesome state.

Yes, the video is drivel. People keep whining about a subject (income “inequality”) that utterly doesn’t matter, per se. What matters is not that there are both insanely wealthy people and desperately poor people, but that some of the wealthy people got their money illegitimately. Those would be politicians, government employees, union bosses, etc, as well as the crony “capitalists” who are basically in bed with the government and rigging the system so it is in their favour. Of course, the video doesn’t mention them at all. The government is the problem here, not capitalism, and whoever made the video is prescribing the completely wrong thing.

And, of course, income “equality” is not something that should ever be a goal in itself, but the goal should rather be providing the conditions that allow people to earn whatever the market decides they should earn (at least to the extent that that is possible).

Something else is that wealth isn’t an actual thing; it is completely relative. Therefore, it can’t be limited. The goal should be to expand the total amount of wealth that exists, rather than to redistribute it. And, as other people have pointed out, “redistributing” it doesn’t help the poor, it only imprisons them in dependency. If you claim to be concerned about the poor, or whatever, and you support socialistic policies, you are a dumbass.

As for the video’s reference to socialism, it came off as sarcastic to me. It sounded like it was saying “the dreaded socialism means everyone has an equal income, and that would just be so terrible.” If it wasn’t sarcastic, its “criticisms” of socialism sure sounded contrived.

By the way, some of my favorite videos are the ones made by Bill Whittle. They are great at explaining both the right’s views, as well as the left’s views (or, in other words, their motives). This is my favorite, but his whole “What We Believe” series is excellent.

Liberals want to make the wealthy the bad guys-funny thing is just how many liberals are wealthy. I often wonder why these wealthy liberals who are part of the 1% don’t just give all their wealth away

To these people, the wealthy leftist who doesn’t give any of his or her money to the poor, but who has the right intentions, is better than the wealthy conservative (or Republican) who gives away a lot of his or her money to the poor. Actions have absolutely no relevance to these people; intentions (or even just opinions) are the only things that matter.

You’re right about the sarcasm in the video’s references to socialism, Rattlesnake. A few of them are definitely sarcastic, but near the end the speaker says “we certainly don’t have to go to socialism” implying that there’s some other type of redistributive scheme that’s not exactly “socialism,” but which somehow manages to achieve the same ends.

The Bill Whittle videos are all great; one of the good things is that he is always conversant with many relevant historical examples which he can cite in making his case.

That’s the game the left is playing. “Yes, we want the state to redistribute income. Yes, we want the state to have absolute regulatory control of the economy. Yes, we want people utterly dependent on that state. But we will call it something other than Socialism.”

Dan, it’s very telling that in your quest to discredit the video as liberal drivel you ignore one of the most interesting facts about the survey it references. Nine of ten people surveyed (Dems and Repubs) think our country’s distribution of wealth is unfairly tilted in favor of the rich and they’re way off about the extent of the inequity. That has nothing to do with socialism or handouts or anything else.

It’s also unfortunate to see your conclude by basically saying well maybe it is unfair, but what can we do about it that wouldn’t be more unfair? Sigh. And if you’re so convinced that the video was spinning the facts than why not address that in greater detail instead of trying to poke holes in the bias of the video? Particularly since this is forum of yours is not always the most objective of blogs. As to the wealth distribution in other countries, you can start here.

Dan, it’s very telling that in your quest to discredit the video as liberal drivel you ignore one of the most interesting facts about the survey it references.

And it’s very telling that you couldn’t even get the author of the post right, since Dan didn’t write it.

Is your point in speaking up, then, to actually raise a concern, or is it just to bash and attack Dan?

I think we all know that answer. Perhaps you could start by admitting that your need to attack Dan blinds you to facts.

And that leads us to this:

Nine of ten people surveyed (Dems and Repubs) think our country’s distribution of wealth is unfairly tilted in favor of the rich and they’re way off about the extent of the inequity.

Nine out of ten Americans believe in God. Therefore, by your impeccable logic, that makes God’s existence a fact and requires laws to punish people like you and your fellow LGBTs that mock belief in God as hatemongering bigots.

It’s also unfortunate to see your conclude by basically saying well maybe it is unfair, but what can we do about it that wouldn’t be more unfair? Sigh. And if you’re so convinced that the video was spinning the facts than why not address that in greater detail instead of trying to poke holes in the bias of the video?

Because, Another_Jeremy, the only answer you will accept is that people who work should be forced by the government to give you their earnings because you have black skin.

You are not capable of discussing anything else. You won’t talk about the illegitimacy rate in the black community, the number of black children who don’t have fathers in the home, the black community’s insistence that being educated is “acting white”, the dulling effect of sending unprepared students to college in the name of “affirmative action”, the racist Obama Party’s refusal to allow black children to utilize vouchers to escape underperforming unionized public schools, and how this all results in a perpetuation of a dependency cycle that has led to the establishment of a permanent black underclass.

Since you won’t deal with the things that create “inequality” or acknowledge that “inequality” can be the result of a person’s choices, there’s really nothing that CAN be done about it. Your “solution” is to use the power of government to force other people who make better choices to subsidize your bad ones.

So somehow because nine out of every ten Americans believes our economic system is unfair it’s because of black people? Over half of the US population (black or white or any other race is just lazy?) It’s truly astonishing the lengths people will go and the straw men people will construct about basic economic truths that have nothing to do with partisanship. The US distribution of wealth is not equitable. And most people realize that. Your response seems to be to blame black people, and that’s not an argument that will pass among people who aren’t idiots. That you and your lot invariably turn to race and then scream that others are racists when they point it out to you on issues makes it quite apparent that the “conservative” side of politics in this country is fueled by white racism.

Here are some factoids for you:

1. The majority of recipients of affirmative action in the work place are white women.

2. There are far more unqualified white males admitted to universities as a result of legacy admissions than race-based affirmative action.

3. The rates of racial discrimination in hiring dwarf the rates of those hired as a result of affirmative action.

But none of that matters of course. You’re just content lord your superior position in America’s racial hierarchy instead of figuring that the things that make you so angry are the very you’re actively warring against. Because you’re stupid. Heaven forbid your tax dollars aid a poor black youth, but you’ll fight to the death for the “freedom” to pay less taxes when it means it’s all going to benefit white men in business suits who would destroy the entire country if it increased their bottom line.

Whatever works for you sweet heart. Maybe when you come out of the closet you’ll be able to think a little more clearly.

Nope. Those aren’t factoids, they are assertions unsupported by links or evidence.

Furthermore, they are assertions made by someone who demonstrably does not carefully read or review information, and who, in his second-to-last paragraph, screams that all problems in society are due to white males.

It only shows how childish you are, Another_Jeremy. But that is typical of what the Obama Party does; it infantilizes minorities like you by telling you that nothing is ever your fault, that everyone owes you a living, and that you don’t need to be educated, work or be responsible because you can just blame whitey.

And that’s all you do. And that is why you and your fellow liberal blacks become more and more and more unequal in employment and in income: it’s because you make the choice to believe the Obama Party’s lies and drop out.

You seem to be under the impression that, if I were out, I would agree with you and blame white males for all of society’s problems. I would instead posit that you are trapped in a closet of liberal thought, forced to blame white males for all of your problems because your fellow black people and liberal gays would ostracize you and tell you to kill yourself if you didn’t.

Be a man and come out, Another_Jeremy. Look beyond skin color and start judging people by character, instead of making excuses for peoples’ stupid decisions because they are the same skin color as yours and arbitrarily hating and blaming others because they aren’t.

[1] Nine of ten people surveyed (Dems and Repubs) think our country’s distribution of wealth is unfairly tilted in favor of the rich and they’re way off about the extent of the inequity. [2] That has nothing to do with socialism or handouts or anything else.

[1] the “distribution of wealth is unfairly tilted in favor of the rich.

Oh, my. First, let us stipulate that wealth IS quite naturally tilted in favor of the wealthy who have accrued the wealth to invest and grow more wealth. Exponential growth is hardly a mathematical secret.

However, Another_Jeremy tells us that the distribution of wealth is unfairly tilted in favor of the rich. Another_Jeremy, therefore claims that the distribution of wealth is somehow fiddled or manipulated beyond the mathematics of exponential growth. But, Another_Jeremy does not explain how this manipulation takes place.

Another_Jeremy does brand the difference between being “poor” and being wealthy as an inequity. Clearly, the estate size of a poor man is not equal to the state value of a wealthy man. That is provable by simple accounting. Another math function. But that observation is so simple that it is inane to proclaim it as some sort of core discovery.

Another_Jeremy notes that nine out of ten people are way off in estimating the “extent of the inequity” between the little guy and the rich man. This sends us back to the word “distribution” in the statement about “unfair titling.”

The statistical distribution of wealth across the population is another simple mathematical function. The socialist sees distribution as some sort of mechanical manipulation that ultimately is best handled by the statists.

[2] Another_Jeremy says that socialism or handouts or anything else has nothing to do with ….. ? The extent of the inequity? The existence of rich and poor? What?

The hate the rich crowd is all over wealth redistribution as an “entitlement” which requires the state to take away from those who make and hand it over to those that take. The state employs the power of force to artificially fundamentally transform how money is accrued by once sector of society and it is obtained by another sector of society based entirely on the subjective judgments of the statists.

Socialism is about SOCIAL control. It’s about destroying all existing cultural values and replacing them with an new set, in an attempt to improve the human species. We’re all part of a huge social experiment.

Otherwise, wouldn’t it be called ‘Economic-ism’? Think about it. The left is proposing SOCIAL fixes for all material problems.

Now liberals are beginning to talk about ‘weight inequality’ (“obesity epidemic”). There is no end to the things they will use as an excuse to seize more power.

Will height inequality be next? Intelligence inequality? Attractiveness inequality? Beauty it seems is no longer in the eye of the beholder. We all must conform to the standards set by the ruling class. There is no longer any room for purely subjective trends.

It’s only OK to be different just so long as you DO NOT DEVIATE from the expectations of liberals.

The whole thing about “redistribution”, Jeremy, is that anything you take from somebody else will never, ever be yours. Redistribution will only work if you get it from somebody else, through somebody else, and only the amount somebody else decides you’re fit to have.

Income inequality doesn’t matter (except for what it reveals about government corruption).

That you and your lot invariably turn to race and then scream that others are racists when they point it out to you on issues makes it quite apparent that the “conservative” side of politics in this country is fueled by white racism.

I believe this is the exactly the kind of comment that NDT uses against the left in his comments. Just because one conservative said something about race (that, by the way, was a comment in opposition to racist policies), that must mean that the entire “conservative side of politics in this country is fueled by white racism.” Logic!

We oppose affirmative action because of principle; not out of some sort of tribal resentment over who benefits.

Something stupid leftists will never understand, because they are all about tribal resentment, and at the mention of “principles” they just get confused.

The women’s movement contributed to less upward mobility: once upon a time, wealthy men married their secretaries; now they marry women who are generally equal wage earners. Before, the Harvard JD was more likely to marry a girl from secretarial school; now, she has to be an Ivy league JD, too.

A word to the not so wise about the word factoid; another definition of it is a small or trivial fact. Obviously those are not small or trivial facts as related to the discussion of affirmative action in this country. I was making use of a rhetorical device known as sarcasm. I assumed you’d heard of it.

Where to even begin with the rest of this tripe. In a comment section for an article about a video that explains the distribution of wealth in America and the public perception to it versus the reality, we have closeted angry queers like North Dallas Dumbass screaming about how black people think school is a white thing, they don’t have jobs because they’re lazy and they just want to rely on the government. I realize that this is par for the course on this website, but you guys need to understand that this shit is absolutely insane.

When I point out the obvious fact that the financial crisis was orchestrated by white men and that one of the biggest tax giveaways in American history to banks that were up to their eye balls in mortgage backed securities, you say I’m blaming white people for everything? Do you even understand the point being made here? It’s that you guys only racialize “entitlements” when they go to people who aren’t white. Instead of taking your pitchforks down to lower manhattan and hollering at the dudes who made off with some 700+ billion in your tax dollars via TARP you guys are screaming like George Wallace come back from the dead about the niggers stealing from the white man. It’s embarrassing. But I guess it’s easier to do that then it is to figure out complicated things out like credit default swaps, collateralized debt obligations and the manner in which the financial industry lobbies Congress to pass laws for ever new and innovative white collar criminal acts we didn’t even know were possible in the past. You guys are angry at everyone except the people take the most money. Maybe one day you’ll figure who your real enemies are, but until then enjoy the ideological circle jerking. Better still, go to a real circle jerk. Maybe a few muscle contractions in your groin will excite a few between your ears. But first I guess you have to stop hating yourselves for craving cock like nuns crave Jesus. Oh well.

we have closeted angry queers like North Dallas Dumbass screaming about how black people think school is a white thing, they don’t have jobs because they’re lazy and they just want to rely on the government.

Except that wasn’t what he was saying.

you guys only racialize “entitlements” when they go to people who aren’t white.

Look at the black population in the United States, and then the white population. The black population is far poorer, and heavily black areas are generally far more dangerous. A large portion of the black population receives various forms of government assistance (welfare, food stamps, housing, etc). An overwhelming majority of the black population votes for Democrats, the party that favours this government assistance, and which also happen to be the party that has usually been in power in heavily black areas over the past few decades. All those things are facts that apply to the black population far more than any other racial group. That doesn’t mean people of other races don’t receive entitlements, which obviously isn’t the case, but black people rely on entitlements far more than any other racial group, to the point where, in many cases, they have been incorporated into black culture.

So, “racializing” entitlements in any other case would be illogical.

Instead of taking your pitchforks down to lower manhattan and hollering at the dudes who made off with some 700+ billion in your tax dollars via TARP you guys are screaming like George Wallace come back from the dead about the niggers stealing from the white man.

I have never seen a conservative who isn’t a politician say they supported TARP. In fact, many conservatives frequently talk about (i.e. criticize) crony “capitalism” (which is what TARP was). But, even an idiot should be capable of realizing the entitlement culture in the black population is a problem that is worthy of being addressed (and those who actually favour reform (i.e. solutions to the problem that will actually work) are almost universally conservatives. I mean, independent black people are far less likely to vote Democrat, so why should the left support those efforts?).

You guys are angry at everyone except the people take the most money.

That is just plain wrong. It is the Democrats and leftist Republicans who are “in bed” with the big banks, and the conservatives who are opposining crony “capitalism.”

In fact, in this very thread, I criticized the corporate welfare receiving big banks:

What matters is not that there are both insanely wealthy people and desperately poor people, but that some of the wealthy people got their money illegitimately. Those would be politicians, government employees, union bosses, etc, as well as the crony “capitalists” who are basically in bed with the government and rigging the system so it is in their favour.

I, for one, have criticized the bailouts (including their recipients) more times than I can count. But from Another_Jeremy’s use of insults (like the one you pointed out), it’s clear that he is not arguing rationally.

Where to even begin with the rest of this tripe. In a comment section for an article about a video that explains the distribution of wealth in America and the public perception to it versus the reality, we have closeted angry queers like North Dallas Dumbass screaming about how black people think school is a white thing,

The subjects of Pelosi’s film admitted that they don’t want to work — just a free check.

Granted, we already know that Pelosi and Obama are insane, but to use their own words to destroy your argument completely and demonstrate what an uneducated and ignorant simpleton you are is just too hilarious.

And that is the problem, Another_Jeremy. You are an ignorant simpleton, an uneducated and racist bigot who can’t do anything other than judge people based on skin color and blame white people for all of his problems.

When I point out the obvious fact that the financial crisis was orchestrated by white men and that one of the biggest tax giveaways in American history to banks that were up to their eye balls in mortgage backed securities, you say I’m blaming white people for everything?

The result was a company whose managers engaged in one questionable maneuver after another, including two transactions with investment banking firm Goldman Sachs Group Inc. that improperly pushed $107 million of Fannie Mae earnings into future years. The aim, OFHEO said, was always the same: To shape the company’s books, not in response to accepted accounting rules but in a way that made it appear that the company had reached earnings targets, thus triggering the maximum possible payout for executives including Raines, Howard and others.

Know what color Franklin Raines is, bigot?

Oh, that’s right; you’re a bigot. You don’t know who Raines is, you don’t know that he is Obama’s economic advisor, you don’t know any of that. All you know is to blame whitey, and that’s all you do, even though it makes you look like an uneducated idiot.

Meanwhile, don’t you remember that your screaming child Obama endorsed TARP, that Obama oversaw TARP, and that Obama continues to rant that TARP was a good idea?

Whereas I, for one, was adamantly against it — as were Heliotrope, ILC, V the K, and others who were also commenting on that thread.

But of course, you’re a bigot. You don’t have the intellect to do anything other than blame whitey, and you CERTAINLY aren’t ever going to hold Obama accountable.

Better still, go to a real circle jerk. Maybe a few muscle contractions in your groin will excite a few between your ears. But first I guess you have to stop hating yourselves for craving cock like nuns crave Jesus. Oh well.

I always have to laugh at these comments, because the obsession with people like Another_Jeremy with the sex lives of others merely reflects their own admission that their sexual orientation is the only thing they have of value.

And in the case of Another_Jeremy, it is true. The only value he has is his sexual orientation and skin color. If he lost both, he really wouldn’t have ANY value, given his clear lack of education, his inability to deal with facts, and his dependence on insults rather than intellectual argument.

This is the clearest example of Obama Party brainwashing. Another_Jeremy doesn’t look at your facts, your argument, or the points you make: he looks at only whether or not he thinks you “crave cock” appropriately and your skin color.

In short, he judges and wants to be judged based on his skin color and sexual orientation, not his character.

Now to Ace’s question[, how will NOT buying troubled assets, more just letting natural market forces work, improve the financial crisis?]

The natural-market-forces-mechanism that will fix this problem is deflation — primarily because, as this pummels the heck out of overpriced assets, it will increase the value of cash and good assets…

…Companies who made wise moves, avoided becoming overleveraged, and built up cash reserves, will be buying for pennies on the dollar the organizations who didn’t and using them to make more money…

That’s right. Crises / recessions are the time when bad investments are fixed, by liquidating them and letting the assets be picked up by more competent people who have better uses for them. But I wasn’t clear on that idea until maybe 2009. Same with your comments on Hoover (that he was actually an interventionist, not a laissez-faire guy).

Do you remember the part where I mentioned that it was North Dallas went on a tirade about black people? This was his original rant. I was talking about him and not you. Did you not gather that from when I said it?

You won’t talk about the illegitimacy rate in the black community, the number of black children who don’t have fathers in the home, the black community’s insistence that being educated is “acting white”, the dulling effect of sending unprepared students to college in the name of “affirmative action”, the racist Obama Party’s refusal to allow black children to utilize vouchers to escape underperforming unionized public schools, and how this all results in a perpetuation of a dependency cycle that has led to the establishment of a permanent black underclass.

This was my assessment.

In a comment section for an article about a video that explains the distribution of wealth in America and the public perception to it versus the reality, we have closeted angry queers like North Dallas Dumbass screaming about how black people think school is a white thing, they don’t have jobs because they’re lazy and they just want to rely on the government. I realize that this is par for the course on this website, but you guys need to understand that this shit is absolutely insane.

Wherein lies the contradiction?

I’m gonna try one more time with this race bullshit. Assigning 13% of the population a viewpoint or trait that must be reserved for individuals because of statistical information about that group is racist. Black people have voted for progressive since long before Obama (and PLEASE do not embarrass yourselves by trying to compare 19th Republicans to 21st century Republicans) came along with his army of black panthers bent on taking the shirt off of your white back and handing it to a sneering gangsta thug with a machine gun. “Entitlements” are not the reason the black populace votes democratic, and such offensive analyses that blacks are being lured to their destruction by well meaning white liberals with their “handouts”and that it’s really conservative white people (historically so dedicated to equitable treatment of black people) who have their best interests at heart is stupid.

Blacks have voted overwhelmingly democratic since the Civil Rights Act was championed by LBJ and opposed by Goldwater. Ever heard of that Act? Little piece of legislation that banned discrimination in public places? Weird. How did LBJ get them to vote for him without offering them a bunch of money? So I guess blacks voted in their interests in the 60s and then didn’t realize that following the Civil Rights Movement conservative white people became really interested in the well being of the black community as demonstrated by their consistently stated opinions that they’re lazy moochers who are trying to steal from hard working whites. I have no idea why they didn’t get it and still don’t. Stupid black people.

Moreover, the countries in Scandinavia and Western Europe have much bigger social safety nets (universal healthcare, paid maternity leave, college education heavily subsidized, etc.) than we do. Yet there is no such assumption that the whites in these countries vote for progressives because of “handouts.” You know why? Because all of this rhetoric about black people and handouts is simply racist code language. Welfare and other such programs were extremely popular among whites until they became available to blacks, and Reagan mastered the lingo with his famed talk about a “Welfare Queen” living off of the government and another [black] guy who was feasting on steak with his government check. Of course it was all bullshit, and almost always is, but it’s still a favorite talking point among idiot conservatives who can’t seem to wrap their heads around the fact that it is the rich CEOs who use our tax dollars to give themselves bonuses that have their boot on our necks, not the poor black woman who uses food stamps to feed her impoverished family.

But anyway, I digress because race has nothing to do with this post. It’s about unequal distribution of wealth in our society. Most everyone agrees that it’s unfair, so why do you have to make it a partisan issue?

Your next bit was more relevant and even more telling. You don’t know of any conservatives who weren’t politicians who supported TARP. But I can sure name a heck of a lot of liberals who opposed it and are actively working to prevent such things in the future. Sanders, Warren, etc. You rightly think TARP was bullshit, so why not stick to policies you don’t like instead of drawing ideological lines in the sand? Why are you supporting the party that has NO people actively campaigning against wall street excess? The $64,000 question is why don’t you focus more on bogus tax giveaways like TARP instead of lazy black people?

And North Dallas I actually agree with you. The Democrats have very little credibility when it comes to reigning in the excesses of the financial industry. Obama’s DOJ has done nothing to bring any CEOs to trial, and it’s mostly been business as usual since Obama won. You’re wrong if you think I’m not holding him accountable though. I voted for Jill Stein last November.

I love the cluelessness with which the desperate racist tries to insist that he isn’t a racist.

I’m gonna try one more time with this race bullshit. Assigning 13% of the population a viewpoint or trait that must be reserved for individuals because of statistical information about that group is racist.

Followed by:

“Entitlements” are not the reason the black populace votes democratic

So he’s assigning 13% of the population a viewpoint or trait that must be reserved for individuals because of statistical information about that group.

So I guess blacks voted in their interests in the 60s and then didn’t realize that following the Civil Rights Movement conservative white people became really interested in the well being of the black community as demonstrated by their consistently stated opinions that they’re lazy moochers who are trying to steal from hard working whites.

So he’s assigning multiple portions of the population a viewpoint or trait that must be reserved for individuals because of his own bigoted perceptions about that group.

And then he really shoots himself in the foot.

Of course it was all bullshit, and almost always is, but it’s still a favorite talking point among idiot conservatives who can’t seem to wrap their heads around the fact that it is the rich CEOs who use our tax dollars to give themselves bonuses that have their boot on our necks, not the poor black woman who uses food stamps to feed her impoverished family.

Under terms of the February loan restructuring, two private investors — Argonaut Ventures I LLC and Madrone Partners LP — stand to be repaid before the U.S. government if the solar company is liquidated. The two firms gave the company a total of $69 million in emergency loans. Argonaut is an investment vehicle of the George Kaiser Family Foundation — headed by billionaire George Kaiser, a major Obama campaign contributor and a frequent visitor to the White House. Kaiser raised between $50,000 and $100,000 for Obama’s 2008 campaign, federal election records show.

So what we see is that the screaming Another_Jeremy is in fact a hypocritical racist and bigot who endorses and supports the Barack Obama Party, his Barack Obama, and his fellow black people doing EVERYTHING THAT HE RANTS ABOUT WHITE PEOPLE DOING.

No wonder you obsess about skin color and sexual orientation, Another_Jeremy. You are mentally and educationally incapable of functioning in society without quotas.

Of course it was all bullshit, and almost always is, but it’s still a favorite talking point among idiot conservatives who can’t seem to wrap their heads around the fact that it is the rich CEOs who use our tax dollars to give themselves bonuses that have their boot on our necks, not the poor black woman who uses food stamps to feed her impoverished family.

All with the full endorsement and support of the Congressional Racist Caucus, which screamed and cried that ethics shouldn’t apply to black people and that committing welfare and tax fraud is the entitlement of black people.

Do you remember the part where I mentioned that it was North Dallas went on a tirade about black people? This was his original rant. I was talking about him and not you. Did you not gather that from when I said it?

So NDT’s “tirade about black people” is proof that the “’conservative’ side of politics in this country is fueled by white racism,” but when that is demonstrated to be bull, then you were just talking about him. Got it.

Assigning 13% of the population a viewpoint or trait that must be reserved for individuals because of statistical information about that group is racist.

Reality is racist! (By the way, no one is assigning any characteristic to any given individual based on stereoypes, except for the left (you know, the people who say that black people must be leftists, or else they are “Uncle Toms” or “oreos.” Which, by the way, is rather racist).

Black people have voted for progressive since long before Obama (and PLEASE do not embarrass yourselves by trying to compare 19th Republicans to 21st century Republicans) came along with his army of black panthers bent on taking the shirt off of your white back and handing it to a sneering gangsta thug with a machine gun.

Oh my. You just can’t stop with the straw men, can you? I’ll save everyone some time here and just say that, whatever you think about conservatives, it is way off. Furthermore, the Republican Party and the Democratic Party have remained the same to a much more significant extent than “progressives” claim. The Democratic Party is still in favour of effective slavery, because it gets them votes.

“Entitlements” are not the reason the black populace votes democratic, and such offensive analyses that blacks are being lured to their destruction by well meaning white liberals with their “handouts”

The phenomenon of the dependency cycle in the black population is not theoretically limited to black people. It could potentially happen anywhere (which it is, by the way. Just not to the same extent as it is among the black population).

Yet there is no such assumption that the whites in these countries vote for progressives because of “handouts.”

Well, given how relevant Scandinavia was to this discussion, I wonder why it didn’t come up…

But, yeah, people vote for politicians who give them things. It doesn’t matter what race they belong to.

The $64,000 question is why don’t you focus more on bogus tax giveaways like TARP instead of lazy black people?

By the way, Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge (both of whom were among the most conservative presidents) were giving blacks positions in federal office and trying to grant them the rights they were entitled to, while Woodrow Wilson (the archetypal “progressive”) was busy being a racist.

Scandiniva and Western Europe are relevant because other countries have large social safety nets and it is not racialized by anyone. But there again, you guys seem to just ignore public policies around the world when they don’t support your contradictory Randian bullshit ideologies.

Except that it isn’t bull. Poor non-hispanic whites receive more aid than poor whites. Poor whites makes up 42% of the poor, 66% of the US population and 69% of the aid given, while poor blacks make up 13% of the US population, 22% of the poor and 14% of the aid given.

So what was that again? Reality is racist? Poor blacks receive most of the government aid? Wrong. And oft screeched talking point to inflame white resentment against blacks, even when whites receive most of the aid. What say you to this study done by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities? Another liberal conspiracy? I defy you to respond to it.

No one is stereotyping blacks? Just that they’re dependent and vote Democratic because they give them more things than they give white people. Except it doesn’t and they don’t.

Except that it isn’t bull. Poor non-hispanic whites receive more aid than poor whites. Poor whites makes up 42% of the poor, 66% of the US population and 69% of the aid given, while poor blacks make up 13% of the US population, 22% of the poor and 14% of the aid given.

The entitlement and mandatory programs covered in the analysis are Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, SNAP (formerly known as the Food Stamp Program), SSI, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), the school lunch program, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), the Earned Income Tax Credit, and the refundable component of the Child Tax Credit.

So he’s padding his figures by including Social Security and Medicare as welfare programs — while he and his fellow Obama supporters scream and cry that they’re not welfare, that people actually pay for them and are actually just receiving the benefits they earn.

Look at the black population in the United States, and then the white population. The black population is far poorer, and heavily black areas are generally far more dangerous. A large portion of the black population receives various forms of government assistance (welfare, food stamps, housing, etc). An overwhelming majority of the black population votes for Democrats, the party that favours this government assistance, and which also happen to be the party that has usually been in power in heavily black areas over the past few decades.

“Various forms of government assistance” includes medicare and social security. And the link North Dallas quoted above only reinforces the notion that Republican rhetoric about entitlements is at odds with the facts. How strange that you would quote such a thing.

The original quote from North Dallas.

<blockquote Because, Another_Jeremy, the only answer you will accept is that people who work should be forced by the government to give you their earnings because you have black skin.

You are not capable of discussing anything else. You won’t talk about the illegitimacy rate in the black community, the number of black children who don’t have fathers in the home, the black community’s insistence that being educated is “acting white”, the dulling effect of sending unprepared students to college in the name of “affirmative action”, the racist Obama Party’s refusal to allow black children to utilize vouchers to escape underperforming unionized public schools, and how this all results in a perpetuation of a dependency cycle that has led to the establishment of a permanent black underclass.

Your tirade about blacks being trapped in a cycle of dependency is racist, inflammatory and at odds with the facts. You do not get to move the goals posts about what constitutes an ‘entitlement” because your “blame the niggers” party line was shoved right up your closeted asshole. Did it feel good? I’m sure when gorge on that first big black cock like I know you want to, you’ll come to your senses and stop fighting for the forces of evil. Trust me Dallas baby, it gets bluer.

Also, why do you keep focusing on these racial issues, (which you raised) instead of the video which points out public perception of wealth distribution and inequality in our society? What next? More stats about Jesus? Affirmative action? Something Nancy Pelosi said 6 years ago? That time Dan Savage said something mean about Republicans? How about how racist Sandra Sotomayor is? What’s the latest ring wing outrage? Anything except explain why the policies proposed and opposed by your party reinforce a system that is on the wrong side of public opinion?

Your tirade about blacks being trapped in a cycle of dependency is racist, inflammatory and at odds with the facts.

Which is, of course, why you and your fellow Obama supporters are constantly screaming and crying that you need more welfare, you need more handouts, you need more gimmes.

Mainly because you’ve chosen to be incapable of caring for yourself and to be mentally or educationally unable to manage yourself or take responsibility for your behavior.

And here’s the best example.

You do not get to move the goals posts about what constitutes an ‘entitlement” because your “blame the niggers” party line was shoved right up your closeted asshole. Did it feel good? I’m sure when gorge on that first big black cock like I know you want to, you’ll come to your senses and stop fighting for the forces of evil. Trust me Dallas baby, it gets bluer.

I’m sure it will. I’ve seen nothing to indicate that you were in any way educated, taught by an adult, including your parents, or otherwise prepared to do anything other than scream, throw a tantrum, and make sexual slurs towards anyone who doesn’t give you whatever you want whenever you want it.

The appeal of Obama to people like you is very simple: Obama encourages you to blame whitey, to act childishly, to sexually slur people, to scream and yell and berate, to riot and burn down buildings, to point guns at police officers, and everything we see in your behavior and the behavior of the Obama-voting black community in Chicago, Brooklyn, and everywhere else. You want to be violent, obscene racist thugs who destroy everything and shoot each other, and Obama gives you the welfare checks to do it.

What Obama DOESN’T demand is that you get an education, that you get a job, that you pay your bills, that you take responsibility for your actions, and that you give up your racist beliefs that white people are to blame for all your problems.

Which is exactly why you are trapped in the cycle of dependency, and will remain there until someone expects you to take on the responsibility of adulthood.

Racism is: Any thinking that judges people by their race rather than their character, or/and that seeks to maintain racial divisions among people.

Many left-liberals are racists. Example: Anyone who supports affirmative action (beyond outreach; more like a quota mentality) is a racist, and probably a sexist.

Liberal racism is part of why many white supremacists were/are fine with Obama. Obama himself thinks in racial categories, and is also socialist-leaning (as are many white supremacists), so the National Socialist types in America view Obama as politically acceptable, as the Esquire article shows.

In view of some of the charges flying around here, and in a spirit of keeping one’s own house clean, I’d like to see if any right-leaning commentor has said something racist in this thread.

NDT’s comments (1) accuse Another_Jeremy of being a racist (along the lines I gave above); (2) talk about the problems of the impovershed (or “underclass”) portion of America’s black population; and (3) note that Another_Jeremy doesn’t want to talk about such problems, even though left-liberal politicians often affirm the problems’ existence. Example from #18:

Because, Another_Jeremy, the only answer you will accept is that people who work should be forced by the government to give you their earnings because you have black skin.

You are not capable of discussing anything else. You won’t talk about the illegitimacy rate in the black community, the number of black children who don’t have fathers in the home, the black community’s insistence that being educated is “acting white”, the dulling effect of sending unprepared students to college in the name of “affirmative action”, the racist Obama Party’s refusal to allow black children to utilize vouchers to escape underperforming unionized public schools, and how this all results in a perpetuation of a dependency cycle that has led to the establishment of a permanent black underclass.

Although NDT invokes racial concepts, he does so in order to criticize those who hold them (for example, he believes that Another_Jeremy nurses a sense of grievance or entitlement, based on race). NDT’s own viewpoint is consistently that people should NOT be judged or entitled by any skin color. Where NDT criticizes groups of people, he names them on the shared idea or behavior that he is criticizing; for example, in other comments he criticizes “Obama supporters” or “Obama party members” (and not “blacks”). Another_Jeremy accuses NDT of racism, but his charges don’t stick because they don’t line up with what NDT actually said.

In #34, RS says:

Look at the black population in the United States, and then the white population. The black population is far poorer…

I should have said earlier that language like “the black population” or “the white population” makes me cringe because it uses racial categories descriptively (like they could potentially be valid), rather than to critique people who cling to racial categories. Reality is *NOT* racist: in reality, there is no definable, distinct “X population” which “is” this or that. Language like “the X community” is just a little better; I still don’t love it, but at least it refers to people who freely choose(!) to identify as X.

Having said all that: Another_Jeremy also chose to use lingo like “the black populace”, and more importantly, I don’t believe for one second that RS’ intention is to maintain racial divisions, or to judge anyone by their race.

I’ll stop here. You get the idea. Sorry if this comment is too prissy (or perhaps referee-ish), but I don’t want it said that I was unwilling to examine the behavior of the right-leaning side. I have examined it, and found no real racism. I think I can now answer Another_Jeremy’s question to NDT:

Also, why do you keep focusing on these racial issues

Because he believes that you do, Another_Jeremy. He brings it up, to nail you with it. He thinks that *you* carry the burden of racial obsession and racist thinking. Is he wrong? I haven’t seen any evidence yet, that he’s wrong.

I don’t believe for one second that RS’ intention is to maintain racial divisions

It wasn’t. Unfortunately, people have been divided up into superficial categories, and the disparate treatment of those categories by the government (and society in general) makes it necessary to acknowledge their existence, regardless of whether or not their existence is justified (which it isn’t, of course). On the other hand, I suppose my preference for clinical terminology could be construed as validating these constructs. I will keep that in mind.

Reality is *NOT* racist

I just want to make clear that I said that in mockery of Another_Jeremy.

It wasn’t. Unfortunately, people have been divided up into superficial categories, and the disparate treatment of those categories by the government (and society in general) makes it necessary to acknowledge their existence, regardless of whether or not their existence is justified (which it isn’t, of course).

…because said disparate treatment has had disastrous consequences (just to clarify).

And I understand about using the language that you find around you; the language that the world uses. Again, I don’t mean to be a prude about it. Even I couldn’t quite avoid using the term “black population” in my fifth paragraph, aargh.

Affirmative Action qualifies ANYBODY who is not a heterosexual White male, Jeremy? Do you know what means? That means White Females, Blacks, LGBT, Hispanics, and Latinos ALL qualify. The White liberals, whose crumbs from their table you beg for and are trying to impress even now, know that. They also know you never have or will amount to anything without them. They also know their daughters qualify for AA, they perform academically better than you, and will produce more than you in the workforce, and they’re now employing AA with something to finally show for it. And they get to keep you needing them. You want to talk about race, Jeremy? Look at how your own masters are turning the tables on you. Black America now only has two choices: either become masters of their own circumstances, which only conservatism will allow; or wait for whatever they’re “redistributed”, and with more productive minorities to choose from and compete with, will become less and less over time. I’m not racist, an Uncle Tom, or any of that, Jeremy; I’m just aware of how the sh*t’s going down.

To be fair, this is not ALL Black people. African immigrants and Black people born here get accepted into universities based on academics, build their own communities, and do very well for themselves. It’s the “Afrocentric” crowd, who immigrants despise and look down on, that make it hard it for everybody else.

What is the cause of the disparity in poverty levels between white and black people?

The problem is with the concepts “black people” and “white people”. They’re false concepts. I mean, what about mixed-race people? Or Sicilians (whom I believe have some Arab blood in them)? Or for that matter, Asians? Or Hispanics… are the light-skinned ones honorary whites? If so, how do we classify the darker ones? and what is the dividing line?

The ‘white people – black people’ concept does have some important historical roots, in Anglo-American slavery. But even there, we can’t say “black comes from slavery” because what about all of the white slaves? (that existed at almost the same period in the Ottoman Empire, the Muslim world)

I’m not interested in perpetuating false distinctions, however historically grounded they may be. I’m interested in solving problems of poverty, broken families and dependency, for all poor people – a good many of whom are white, Hispanic, mixed, etc.

The problem is not in tracking the historical racial classifications, or noticing the statistical differences in them. The problem (which is NOT anything that I accuse you of) is in thinking it matters. The statistical differences are (or should be) an historical curiosity, nothing more.

The problem is not in tracking the historical racial classifications, or noticing the statistical differences in them. The problem (which is NOT anything that I accuse you of) is in thinking it matters. The statistical differences are (or should be) an historical curiosity, nothing more.

I’m not sure I agree with that. I see your point, but one problem is that these groups, whose existence might not have any rational basis, but exist nonetheless, are reinforced by government policies that are directly responsible for the disparity among them. Short of completely tearing down a government as it exists and rebuilding it according to the principles of natural law, these policies must be addressed. They aren’t the only things that contribute to poverty, of course, but they are a significant contributor to poverty.

I’m sure I could have worded my question differently, and I apologize for (again) giving validity to these constructs, but I wanted Another_Jeremy to be able to understand what I was talking about (it is clear that he is only capable of thinking in terms of “white people vs. black people.” The concepts you speak of are, I’m sure, completely beyond his capacity to understand). I would wager that he isn’t capable of giving any sort of response to that question that doesn’t involve “white privelege” or something, which is complete bullsh*t. Which was my point in asking it (that is, that he wouldn’t be able to give a cogent response). I was also interested to see what other responses I might get, though, just to see if any new information came up.

If you think I give a rip about my “credibility” among commenters who bemoan the racial politics of liberals on a thread about wealth distribution by people on a blog expressly dedicated to gay conservatives, you are sorely mistaken.

I Luv Capitalism-

I didn’t bring up race. One of your fellow conservatives did. And I responded in kind, always bringing the conversation back to wealth inequality. So if you want some “credibility” you can start with addressing what this thread is actually about instead of turning the discussion into a racial flame war and then chastising me when I prove the racist comments of others to be falsehoods.

Mainly because, Another_Jeremy, as you have so beautifully demonstrated, you and your fellow liberals believe that white people are to blame for every problem in society.

“Income inequality” is just your latest rationalization for demanding that white people be punished and forced to give you money because you have black skin.

Because, as we’ve seen from your behavior, you’re an uneducated racist bigot who screams, throws tantrums, blames white people and makes sexual slurs when he doesn’t get his way, which pretty much ensures you’re going to be completely “unequal” in income when it comes to a person who relies on their character rather than their skin color.

Another_Jeremy wants those like himself who use their skin color as an excuse, attack and berate anyone who criticizes their performance, and make sexual slurs about people that they do not like to receive exactly the same pay as someone who does the exact opposite.

That is what “income inequality” blather is all about. Simply put, the rotten and lazy performers like Another_Jeremy demand that they be paid the same as the honest and hardworking performers. They want retirement savings confiscated because they refuse to save. They want merit and performance pay banned because they have no intention of doing either. They want hiring, promotion, and advancement based on quotas for intrinsic factors like skin color, gender, and sexual orientation rather than extrinsic factors like performance and value.

And they vote for the politician that promises that, which is Barack Obama and the Barack Obama Party.

[...] not the ironic part. The ironic – no, tragic – part is that left-liberals, who we know complain about income inequality (thanks Kurt!), are being given that very inequality by the policies of the Obama administration. [...]